Four ex-Blackwater security guards seek dismissal of charges of killing Iraq civilians One of four charged is former Marine from Rochester

From staff and wire reports

Saturday, April 5, 2014

WASHINGTON — A former Blackwater security guard and decorated Marine from Rochester is one of four American former security contractors who may face trial for participating in a deadly shooting of civilians during an Iraqi War incident.

The original charges against the four were dismissed in federal court in 2009. but the dismissal was overturned on appeal and the men were re-indicted by a federal grand jury in October. The indictment contains manslaughter charges related to a shooting incident in which 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians died and at least 18 others were wounded at Nisur Square in Baghdad, according to a CNN report.

The trial is scheduled for June, according to The Associated Press, although defense attorneys are awaiting a ruling on their February request to have the case dismissed again.

Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester, is one of the men facing trial. The others are ex-Marine Dustin Heard of Knoxville, Tenn., and Army veterans Nick Slatten of Sparta, Tenn., and Paul Slough of Keller, Texas.

Federal prosecutors dismissed charges against a fifth man originally charged in the case, ex-Marine Donald Ball of West Valley City, Utah.

The indictment against the other four men alleges that they “unlawfully and intentionally, upon a sudden quarrel and heat of passion, did commit voluntary manslaughter.”

Prosecutors say they intend to introduce new evidence of deep hostility by several of the guards toward the Iraqi civilian population in the year before the shootings.

In a court filing last week, Justice Department prosecutors stated, “In the year leading up to the events of Sept. 16, 2007, several of the defendants harbored a low regard for and deep hostility toward the Iraqi civilian population, which they openly expressed to other Blackwater personnel and exhibited through their deliberately reckless actions.

“This evidence tends to establish that the defendants fired at innocent Iraqis not because they actually believed that they were in imminent danger of serious bodily injury ... but rather that they unreasonably and recklessly fired at innocent Iraqi civilians because of their low regard for and hostility toward Iraqis,” the filing added, according to ABC News.

The guards were hired to clear the way for a convoy of U.S. State Department vehicles ,carrying diplomats for a meeting with officials of the Agency for International Development.

Defense lawyers have said the guards believed they were under hostile fire at the time and contend that the men were improperly charged under a federal law that holds military employees and contractors accountable for crimes committed outside the United States.

The lawyers say the statute, the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, should not apply to the defendants since they were contracted by the State Department, not the military. Although the statute also covers non-military contractors who are in support of the Defense Department's mission, defense lawyers say the Blackwater guards were specifically assigned to diplomatic security and had no military function.

The government's failure to link the shooting to a military mission “leaves defendants at a loss as to what they must meet at trial on this element — the element that determines whether the charged conduct is prosecutable under United States law,” the defense attorneys wrote in their petition seeking dismissal of the charges.

Prosecutors have not yet filed a response, and a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington declined to comment on the motion earlier this week.

The Blackwater shooting incident outraged many Iraqis and strained the relationship between Iraq and Washington. The Iraqis wanted the Blackwater contractors tried in Iraq, but the U.S. said no.

Many Iraqis were upset when charges were dropped, saying it showed that Americans considered themselves above the law. The Iraqi government began collecting signatures for a class-action lawsuit from the wounded victims of the shootings and the families of those killed.

Blackwater said that their contractors were innocent of wrongdoing, contending that there were ambushed by insurgents.

Court documents paint a murky picture of a case rife with conflicting evidence. Some witnesses say the Blackwater convoy was under fire; others say it wasn't. Some said the entire convoy fired into the intersection; others said only a few men opened fire.

The company formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide is under new ownership and is based in Virginia under the name Academi.

In a 2010 interview with Foster's Daily Democrat, Evan Liberty's attorney said his client had to put his life “on hold” to deal with the legal issues. Attorney Bill Coffield said Liberty was attending school but declined to say where.

This story includes reports from The Associated Press, ABC News, CNN and Travelers Today.